The Houston Astros and Boston Red Sox resume their American League Division Series with Game 2 on Friday afternoon at Minute Maid Park in Houston.
Red Sox vs. Astros, ALDS Game 2: Start time, TV schedule, and live stream
The Astros took Game 1 on Thursday behind three home runs from Jose Altuve and a strong pitching performance by Justin Verlander, and they look to take the series to Boston with a commanding 2-0 series advantage.
Dallas Keuchel starts Game 2 for the Astros, making his third career postseason start. In his Cy Young Award-winning season in 2015, Keuchel had a 2.57 ERA in three playoff appearances and won both of his starts, including allowing one run in seven innings in Game 3 of the ALDS at home against the Kansas City Royals.
“This crowd is the trick. Especially with the roof closed, it feels like there’s about 90,000 people instead of 40, 45,000” Keuchel said on Thursday. “I told some of the guys for the first time I said, Get ready because you’re going to need some earplugs. I wasn’t able to talk to the guys next to me on the bench.
“It’s going to be loud, but it’s going to be exciting. I’m grateful that we got some experience in 2015 and hopefully that will carry us to the championship series.”
Fellow southpaw Drew Pomeranz starts on the mound for the Red Sox, looking for more success against the 101-win Astros. In two starts against Houston in 2017, Pomeranz allowed two runs in 12⅓ innings.
Pomeranz was 17-6 with 3.32 ERA on the season, including 8-2 with a 3.01 ERA after the break.
ALDS Game 2 time, TV and streaming info
- Teams: Red Sox (93-69) at Astros (101-61)
- Series: Houston leads, 1-0
- Time: 2 p.m. ET
- First pitch: 2:05 p.m.
- Location: Minute Maid Park, Houston, Texas
- TV: FS1
- Streaming: Fox Sports Go
- Announcers: Joe Davis, David Cone, A.J. Pierzynski and Jon Paul Morosi
Astros vs. Red Sox news & notes
The Red Sox need to run wild against the Astros, says Matt Collins at Over the Monster:
While Houston has a couple of strong offensive catchers in Brian McCann and Evan Gattis, they are not as strong when it comes to holding opponents to first base. On the season, no team was worse at preventing steals than the Astros. Opponents attempted 116 steals against Houston in 2017 and they were only able to catch 14 of them for an abysmal 12 percent rate. (For what it’s worth, the Red Sox were second in baseball with a 39 percent caught stealing rate, behind only the Indians.) The Red Sox don’t have that big bat in front of whom they’ll be afraid to attempt a steal, so they need be thinking about swiping that extra bag just about every time they reach third. There is also the possibility of one of those big Betts/Benintendi double steals we’ve seen a few times late in the regular season.
Don’t let the Astros’ pedestrian second-half stretch fool you, says The Crawfish Boxes:
With the lede sufficiently buried 600 words into this article, here is the Astros’ pitching over the last 30 days, looking at only presumptive playoff pitchers:
Rotation:
Justin Verlander, Dallas Keuchel, Lance McCullers, Charlie Morton:
3.43 ERA
Bullpen:
Ken Giles, Joe Musgrove, Chris Devenski, Brad Peacock, Luke Gregerson, Francisco Liriano, Will Harris, Tyler Clippard
3.57 ERA
See More:
